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Girls vs. Boys: Is the ‘Boy Crisis’ Real?

Girls often outperform boys in school, scoring higher on exams and attending college at higher rates. They've also begun to match boys' math scores, one area in which they've long been outdone. What accounts for girls’ apparent advantage over their male peers, and is it as grave as many suggest?

In a 2000 article in The Atlantic, Christina Hoff Sommers wrote, “many a teacher now feels that girls need and deserve special indemnifying consideration.” But, she argued, these feelings stemmed from a mistaken belief that boys receive more classroom attention and outperform girls as a consequence. In fact, girls are plowing ahead in topics like reading and science, and they are more likely to go to college than their male peers.

Girls typically read at a higher level than boys do. The Nation’s Report Card charted reading test scores of 4th and 8th graders in 2007 and noted a gap of 7 points between girls and boys in grade 4 and a 10-point difference in grade 8. According to the site, “These gender score gaps were not significantly different from the gaps seen 15 years ago.”

But according to a study published in the journal Science on July 24, girls are now matching boys in math. The study, called "the largest of its kind" by MSNBC, showed that "girls measured up to boys in every grade, from second through 11th." The study also showed that stereotypes about boys outdoing girls have tended to prevent girls from taking harder math classes in school.

Some claim that the so-called “boy crisis” is exaggerated. In 2006, Sara Mead wrote that it’s socioeconomics that are skewing results: “[S]ome groups of boys—particularly Hispanic and black boys and boys from low-income homes—are in real trouble,” but their issues have little to do with gender. She argues that “[t]he real story is not bad news about boys doing worse; it’s good news about girls doing better … American boys are scoring higher and achieving more than they ever have before. But girls have just improved their performance on some measures even faster.”

One major influence on girls’ academic success appears to be participation in sports. A 2008 study by the University of Minnesota’s Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport found that “Athletic girls perform better academically and have lower dropout rates than do their non-athletic counterparts.” The really good news: “Girls are participating in organized sports more than ever and at all levels—from organized youth sports, to interscholastic sports and up through Olympic competition.”

The bad news is that “many barriers, stereotypes, and gender iniquities” affect girls’ relationship with sports: their attendance in sports still lags behind males, and the likelihood that girls will drop out of a sport is also higher.

In the 2006 PBS documentary “Raising Cain,” adapted from Michael Thompson’s book of the same name, Thompson, child psychologists, and education specialists suggest school may not be catering to boys’ learning needs. Statistically, boys have higher levels of activity and have more trouble focusing and paying attention. They are “four to five times more likely than girls” to be diagnosed with ADHD. Watch clips from the documentary on the PBS Web site.

In a 2006 article, University of Florida professor and counselor Mary Ann Clark examines the gender gap in test performance and posits that it may come down to neurology: “Brain research has shown differences in male and female brains that can affect preferred learning styles and communication…It has been suggested that public school curriculum may not be teaching ‘to the boys’ and that teaching styles are more suitable for girls.” This both agrees with the “Raising Cain” argument and harks back to The Atlantic article, which asserts that paying special attention to girls in school may be hindering boys’ academic development.